The Son he Never Had
by athenares
Summary: Everything between them cautiously ended when their lips parted. Secrets behind Erichthonius' birth. Athena/Ares. Romantic. Please Review!


**A/N: Ahhhh… you won't like this idea. But anyway… Just one of the things that popped in my head. xD (LOL)**

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Ares' fingers squeezed deeper into the smooth wooden rail from the balcony. His eyes were fixed below, searching and examining like the very vulture as his embodiment. The moon was a hundred times bigger from where he was and the sky was covered with a bluish-black blanket. He was standing from Olympus, seeing movements far below the earth, like they were in front of his own vision. He can hear their laughter, and can smell their scent. He saw the child hold on to his mother's fingers. She, the only one with silver grey eyes, laughed her heart out. She held the young boy on her arms after catching him from stumbling. The child was tugging his own tiny feet to walk in the grassy pasture. He walked steps: one, two, three, and his mother caught him once more. The boy clapped his hands; he was babbling vowels which he alone would only understand. The mother picked him up, fixed his soft thin black hair, and cooed the boy. She walked steadily, motherly pride in her eyes as she held him. The boy finally yawned and stayed silent as he laid his head on her mother's bosom.

The war god, seeing them being enveloped by clouds to be flown to Olympus, finally looked away and continued to his lair with a mind dipped in agony.

Athena lowered her gaze, pretending not to see anyone coming on her way as she walked through the darkened halls illuminated by nothing but torches. Outside was bright, with the sun high up in the sky with its scorching heat. Her footsteps were light as they moved steps closer to him.

He grabbed her arm to face him. She sighed. This would be the thousandth time, if she would exaggerate, that he had bothered her. Ares held her shoulders and pinned her on the wall behind. He cornered her with an arm. She can feel his deep warm breaths on her face, meeting his gaze. She was pretty small for him, with only her forehead leveled with his chin.

"Look at me." His rough voice started the confusion once more. Athena smiled with disappointment and shook her head.

"Ares, how many times would I have to tell you…"

"Alibis."

"Then you don't have to ask."

He squeezed into her when she made a move to step away. She can feel his pulse vibrating on her chest, even though covered with a breastplate. Each beat seemed to get stronger. She looked on the eyes towering over her, and Ares cannot read the secrets that they possess beneath the grey hue. He lifted a palm and held her cheek. Athena can see, for the first time, sadness in his deep scarlet eyes. One that she – or anyone else – had never seen because of the dominance of angst that always masked them.

"Athena… stop torturing me."

"I never had."

He sighed and looked away, with a little spice of hurt in his deep manly voice. He looked at her once more, still wanting to trap her trust. "Confess it… he is mine."

This time she laughed, and pushed him slightly to free herself from his suffocating gaze. He followed her steps with eyes that seemed to end his patience. She gave out another set of laughter before facing him. "You are out of your mind, Ares. This is not the first time you uttered those. Stop bothering me." She removed a lock of hair that went between her eyes and fixed herself, taking another step to continue her journey, bidding him farewell.

"I have a city to attend to,"

She slowly disappeared from his sight. He felt weakened by her words which poisoned him. His mind was caught in a web of chaos, keeping him up at night, consuming him during the day. He couldn't finish his meals, couldn't drink a drop of water, and only depended on wine to booze him. As he closed his eyes, the image of the boy came into view. Deep inside he ached to touch him, to look straight into his big eyes that he could not even decipher which color it was, to trace his plump cheeks with a finger, and most importantly to give a gentle kiss in the child's forehead as an acceptance to his responsibility as a father. Every time he sees him, he couldn't help but be captivated, and he doesn't know why such feelings boil.

Yet she was always there to stop him from thinking. She had always made him feel he had no right to invent such imaginations. Ares leaned his forehead on the cool wall which he used to pin Athena. As he breathed out, he can feel the same air blow back to his face, blocked by the flat marble. He could not do anything but sigh.

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_His fingers slid through the strands of long dark hair, feeling the softness on his skin. He tried to see her face, but there was a heavy feeling in his head, making him dizzy and unable to speak. All he knew was that she came, supposedly to call him but he had this confused inner feeling he had been keeping beneath his own secret spaces. She had little resistance during the first few kisses, but he had been able to seduce her with words which he knew can tame her. His hands slowly undressed her shoulders and he can hear her thundering heartbeats. He can hear her words, can understand them, can reply to them, but he cannot remember anything she said, she did, and what happened before he woke up alone, in his full armor, smelling the same liquor which was trapped in his breath._

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Erichthonius. _Earth-born._ Athena slowly whispered his name, her grey eyes peering into his sweet little sleeping face. It was only now that she noticed a mole on his eyelid, and that he had thick eyelashes. She smiled, stroked the baby's hair, and tucked him between soft feather pillows. Suddenly she paused, feeling another presence not far from her chamber. Getting on her feet, she opened the door and stepped out, looking for anyone who might be seeking her aid.

There he stood three steps below her. She looked down on him, noticing the familiar stain of turmoil in his pleading eyes.

"It's late, Ares." She spoke, bending her elbow to squeeze her other arm. A gentle breeze passed through her and played with the locks of her dark waist-length hair. He stepped up to meet her, and she can smell the burning scent of liquor embedded on him. "One answer, Athena…" his broken voice spoke to her, wounding her soul and digging deep enough to well up tears in her eyes. Once more he stood less than a foot from her and held both her hands. She can feel them cold and stiff. She breathed in, closed her eyes, and let him cup both her cheeks with tired palms. Their foreheads touched, and Ares slowly rubbed his nose to hers, wanting her to feel his sincerity. "Just one answer… one honest answer…" he breathed, pulling her face inches away from him to look into her crystal grey eyes. "…and I'll stop bothering you. Free me from my guilt, Athena, I plead…" She waited for his next words in plain silence.

"Is he my son?" he asked once more, the only question that had been drowning him in heavy weights of curiosity and pain. Her tear fell as she lowered her lashes and held his hand which cupped her cheek.

She felt a lump on her throat but still tried to pull the word stuck on it. "No."

"Athena…" he shook her cheeks to attract her attention and lightly smiled though his lips trembled with cold, "…what are you afraid of? Zeus? Your people? Me? I-I'll change. I'll change for the boy, for you, for us I pro–"

She stopped him by placing the edge of her warm fingers above his lips. "Ares… Do I have to tell you _again_ what happened? I went to Hephaestus with a damaged armor, I asked him to fix it for me, and when I returned to claim them he chased me trying to force himself upon me, his fluid fell on my leg and I wiped it. I threw it on the earth, and the baby came out…" her eyebrows met with such irritation in her eyes that were half-filled with tears, "How many times do you have to hear it?" She finally released his lips from her fingers, her heart roughly pulling the air she breathes. He finally let go of her cheeks and stepped back.

Ares bit his lower lip, hesitating to speak, looking through her eyes and giving time for her to take back everything she said. They paused for a while, and he was still hoping she would change her mind. But she looked back at him with a steady stare, one that had convinced anyone that she was telling the twisted _truth. _He finally closed his eyes and lowered his head, hammering himself deep inside to accept and let the belief sink into him. She stepped towards him and this time, the one who held his cheeks with both palms. His lonely eyes looked into her and asked for one last favor before everything dissolves between them.

She slowly stood on her toes and parted his lips with hers. Both felt themselves warm up from the heated passion they had been calming through all the years. They had been suffering from circumstances they hated and loved the most. He pressed further, feeling the wet bead from his eye fall. She finally sealed his doubts, and he can feel her hypnotizing him into believing her claims, cooling the fire stirred with his curiosity. Everything between them cautiously ended when their lips parted. It was worse than saying goodbye, than dying in battle.

Ares whispered words which she absorbed wholeheartedly. He waited for her response, and hearing none, he faced his back on her to step away. Behind him her soul broke. She never wanted him to disappear from her sight. Behind him she had died deep within but only kept in mind that this was what it had to be. He never looked back. She watched him ride his chariot and leave.

Athena locked the door of her chamber. As her trembling hands squeezed into the silver knob, her knees dropped and she finally let out a muffled cry. Her hand still held on to the knob, while the other on her mouth. She hit her head slightly on the door which she faced and her though her eyes shut tight, the tears kept coming out.

_I love you too…_

She thought deep within, words she always wanted to tell him but cannot. Words she wanted to answer when he said the same just minutes before. One simple sentence she would have told him, if not just for the faithfulness to her father whom she wholeheartedly respected. Zeus knew she would do _anything_ he would ask her. And although it broke her heart, she faced the council of gods and made the vow of celibacy. Most of them delighted but on the corner of her eye, she saw Ares leave the council hall without excuse. Guilt had melted her heart, and she would have caught him if not for Zeus who stopped her and led her to the gods who wanted to commend her brave and pure decision. She never had the chance to tell him she was sorry for he always avoided her, not until the night that joined them, bringing another divine soul to existence.

Athena laid herself beside Erichthonius. She hears his baby breaths, and proceeded to close her eyes comforting herself that everything had to be that way. That she is to be seen as a pure, independent goddess and Ares as a warmongering buffoon. That there was never a time she had loved and been loved physically. And they had to end up in historian's accounts how they were supposed to be ended: that she had to be a slave of expectations, while he had to be a captive of bloodlust.

…And that their love _had to be_ forgotten.

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**A/N: *face down on keyboard* oh god of motivation… why do you hate me sooooo… x_X**


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